 |
August Newsletter
| A lot happened “behind the scenes” at Outside Edge last month! Throughout July the Phil Fox Award readers were assessing all the scripts we received for our inaugural script competition. Our Facilitators and Peer Volunteers had training and started delivering our redesigned Online Drama Taster Sessions for treatment facilities and our back office team started recruitment for an Outreach and Administration Assistant. We can’t wait to share with you what’s coming up in August and the rest of the summer. If you want to get involved in anything you read about, please get in touch. |
 |
Online Workshop Schedule
| August 2020 If you are new to OETC and would like to participate in any of these activities then please register your interest here, and someone from our team will contact you. Mondays 6:30pm-8:30pm – Edge Two & The Company (Christopher & Julia) Edge Two and The Company continue to collaborate on our Text Analysis project. The group will look at how performers read, understand and creatively interpret the words on a page.If you have been to a minimum of 3 Write Now, Drop-in Drama or Women’s Drama Group sessions, you can join this group. Tuesdays 6:30pm-8:00pm – Theatre Club (Molly) Join us in a conversation about our weekly Theatre Trip! Watch the play online ahead of the group then join us for a chat about the play and a Q&A with an exciting guest from the show! 4th August – Blueprint Medea (Finborough Theatre) guest writer and director Dr Julia Pascal 11th August – Institute (Gecko) guest to be confirmed. 18th August – Playboy of the Western World (Druid Theatre) guest to be confirmed. 25th August –Albion (Almeida) guest to be confirmed. Wednesdays 3:30pm-5:30pm – Write Now (Sonya & Gemma) 6:30pm-8:30pm – Drop-In Drama (Tunde & Julia) Thursdays 12:30pm-2:30pm – Women’s Drama Group (Gemma & Charon) 7:00pm – Watch Theatre Club Show Watch the show for next week’s Theatre Club or catch up whenever you get the chance. The plays and viewing links are listed above. Fridays 1:00pm-3:00pm – Peer-led Check-in (Liam & Sue) The chat room is open for participants to support each other or just meet up to chat about how they are feeling. Open to all participants who have attended 1 other group previously. Sundays (2nd – 23rd August) 2:00pm-4:00pm – Overdose Awareness Day Performance Project (Kate) Participants will meet on Zoom to devise (and film) performances and create video content in response to Overdose Awareness Day. These videos will be collated and compiled by a professional team of editors to make a bespoke piece of video art. If you have been to a minimum of 3 Write Now, Drop-in Drama or Women’s Drama Group sessions, you can join Edge Two & The Company for this new project. ____________________________________________________________________________ For more information see below. Please note that all OETC groups will now be held on Zoom. All current OETC participants should have received an email and/or text message from us with information on how to join in the activities. If you are a participant who did not yet receive this information, please email admin@edgetc.org or call us on 0207 371 8020.To keep up to date with the latest schedules check us out on Twitter (@ OutsideTheatre) and Facebook (@ Outsidedgetheatre) every Monday! Follow us on social media to see what Outside Edge is up to. |
NEW Southwark Drop-In Drama Group!
 |
| Outside Edge is pleased to announce that in September we will be starting a NEW Drop-In Drama group in South London. For those of you who have wanted to join OETC’s activities, but travel to West London hasn’t been an option, we’ve heard you and we are coming to you! Like it’s West London counterpart, Southwark’s Drop-In Drama will be free and open to anyone who has been affected by addiction. You don’t need to have any experience of drama, you just need to be abstinent on the day of the workshop and have a willingness to get involved. This group is a great way to meet like-minded people, improve your wellbeing, learn something new and support your recovery whilst having some fun! We’re still in the process of hammering out the group’s time and location, but if you’re a South London drug and alcohol treatment service or a potential participant and want more information get in touch with us admin@edgetc.org. |
OVERDOSE AWARENESS DAY PERFORMANCE PROJECT
 |
| This exciting performance collaboration to raise awareness about overdose launched earlier this month on a Zoom meeting with participants joining from Bristol, Bath, Manchester, Brighton and of course London! Participants will meet on Zoom across 4 Sunday afternoons in August to devise (and film) performances. These videos will be collated and compiled by a professional team of editors to make a bespoke piece of video art. This short film will premiere online on Overdose Awareness Day (31st August) across social media platforms in tandem with the other groups participating from around the country, such as Theatre Royal Plymouth, Bristol Drugs Project and Small Performance Adventures. The project will be directed by Kate McCoy, who is the artistic director of Small Performance Adventures. She is a participatory performance maker and facilitator who has worked in prisons, universities and many other places for over twenty five years. OETC participants that have been to 3 or more sessions of any of our activities can join in this group and add their voices to a project that raises awareness about overdose in our community. We will post information for how to watch the Overdose Awareness Day videos on our social media channels later this month, so if you don’t already follow us up on social media, now is your chance |
Save the date
LOVE IN A CORONA CRISIS
| At the beginning of lockdown the playwrights of Write Now worked on writing radio plays inspired by the title LOVE IN A CORONA CRISIS. With support from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), which is one of the country’s top drama schools, the short plays were recorded by a team of student and professional actors and we can’t wait to share them with you! Invites to our live sharing party will be sent out the week commencing 3rd August so check your inbox for more information. In the meantime, save the date to join us on Zoom for the sharing 13th August at 7pm. Write Now is supported by: The Mount Trust |
Edge Two – The Seagull
 |
| Every Monday Edge Two’s dedicated group of performers have been diving into the text of Chekhov’s The Seagull. Working with a classic text was a challenge that the group had asked for to improve and refine their skills as performers. The group are 6 weeks into the project and are making fantastic progress already. Near the end of August the group will present their incredible work to an audience of supporters and we will announce how this work will be shared over the coming weeks, so watch this space! |
Edge Two is supported by: |
Quotes of the month
 |
OETC’s Five Ways To Wellbeing Drama Taster Sessions are back and ONLINE!
| Outside Edge’s FREE 1 hour Drama Taster Sessions have now been re-designed specifically for online delivery! We missed being able to visit drug & alcohol treatment facilities, so we decided to “Zoom” over instead! The focus of the workshop remains the Five Ways to Wellbeing, using fun, fast paced exercises that allow participants to connect in an engaging, entertaining online environment. We have developed the content of the workshop to translate across any video conferencing platform that services may already be using (e.g. Zoom, Microsoft Teams etc). Our specially trained facilitators can also make work accessible to Service Users who are only able to use audio and not video. If you would like to book an Online Drama Taster Session please contact Molly for more information (admin@edgetc.org). |
Thank You To Our Supporters!
| During these difficult times we would like to thank our recent supporters who have made donations to Outside Edge this month: Sylvia Waddilove Foundation UK and |
 |
| And everyone who donated to our Emergency Covid-19 Appeal! |
Support us
| To continue to offer our creative activities for free we rely on the continued support of grants and donations.If you would like to help Outside Edge through this challenging time and ensure we have the capacity to restart our activities for people in recovery as soon as possible, then please consider donating. |
From our friends…
 |
Moment of Grace
| Originally created as a three-person play, Moment of Grace looks at the famous visit of Princess Diana to a London AIDS ward in 1987 and its impact on three people: Andrew, a patient, Jude, a nurse on the ward, and Donnie, a fireman estranged from his son. Originally a three-person play, Moment of Grace showcased at the 2018 Bloomsbury Festival to sold out audiences and held a one-off performance of the play for World AIDS Day in 2018 at St Annes Church in Soho, with support of a small grant from 56 Dean Street. Due to the current lockdown conditions, the play has been reimagined as a film, with the actors self-shooting at home to adhere to social distancing guidelines resulting in the unique circumstance of filming a play set during a pandemic during another pandemic. |
 |